Photovoltaic Thermal System: Effect of Active Cooling

Absorption of solar radiation increases the temperature of photovoltaic (PV) cells, resulting in a drop of electrical efficiency. A hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar system was designed, fabricated and experimentally investigated in this work. To actively cool the PV cells, a parallel array of ducts with inlet/outlet manifold was designed for uniform airflow distribution and attached to the back of the PV panel. Experiments were performed with and without active cooling. A linear trend between the efficiency and temperature was found. Without active cooling, the temperature of the panel was high and solar cells can only achieve an efficiency of 8 to 9%. However, when the panel was operated under active cooling condition, the temperature dropped significantly leading to an increase in efficiency of solar cells between 12 and 14%.